Hello all! This is a Nancy Drew oneshot based off an idea proposed by ghostdogsofbaskerville (on tumblr) and centering around Joy Trent from the Haunted Carousel. There will be minor spoilers for CAR and CLK, just as in who's *not* the culprit and what happens to some characters afterwards. Also, there are mentions of parental death, WWII, and implied miscarriage, just in case any of these things trigger you. I hope you all enjoy!
This takes place several days or so after the Haunted Carousel.
Joy Trent tugged gently on the light string and stepped off the final rung of the ladder. The weak illumination of a single lightbulb threw the attic's contents into clearer view, casting shadows of old boxes and furniture across the walls. Memory hung thickly in the dusty air. Joy couldn't remember the last time she'd been in this room. Certainly not since her mother died; maybe not at all. Perhaps the faint glimpses of black-and-white albums and yellowing pages that still lingered in her mind were merely recollections of stories she'd been told as a child.
Whatever the truth, it hardly mattered. She was here now, not as a little girl but a young woman, to revisit things long since put away.
Casting her view about the cluttered room, Joy realized she had very little idea of where to start. It had been a hunch, really, that had led her up here; the chance, however slight, that more relics of her mother had survived her grief-crazed purge. Her father's letter had claimed only one photograph remained, but certainly there was a chance that more might still exist. It didn't even need to be a picture; all Joy wanted was something, anything, which proved her mother had once lived, which might still be warm as if from the touch of her hand or carry the scent of her perfume or evoke some long-suppressed childhood memory. Where better to look than here, this repository of all things lost and forgotten?
Unsure of what exactly she was searching for, the young woman pulled aside a sheet and bent down to examine what it had been covering. A phonograph, its gigantic bell draped in cobwebs; an old-fashioned sewing machine; a black trilby, and – Joy's heart froze – a large chest, simply marked "mom."
Logic returned to Joy as quickly as it had left. This couldn't possibly be her mother's trunk; for one thing, it looked far too old, and more importantly, Joy was an only child. She would have been the only person to refer to Valerie Trent as 'mom,' and she had no recollection of marking the chest. After all, how could she have? She had been only four at the time of the accident, and the handwriting on the label was clearly not that of a child…
Which meant, then, that this was most likely her mother's writing, and that the trunk must have belonged to her grandmother.
A rush of excitement crept over Joy. She had hardly known her grandmother; she had lived several states over, somewhere in the Midwest, and the family hadn't often had the time or money to visit her. The dear old lady had passed away not long after the tragedy that took her daughter. Grief can claim a heart just like sickness claims a body; Joy knew this only too well. Closing her eyes, she probed her mind for any memory of her grandmother, catching only flashing glimpses. A kind face framed by snow-white curls. Sunlight streaming into a pleasant room. The taste of homemade cherry pie.
Holding her breath, Joy undid the trunk's hinges – they opened far more easily than she'd expected – and peered inside. The rectangular box, lined with peeling floral-patterned paper, was crammed with stacks of books and letters in varying shades of yellow and white. At the top lay what looked to be a diary, its thick brown cover marked with the words "Lest I Forget." Joy didn't recognize the name inside the front cover – Josiah Crowley – but decided to peruse it nonetheless. Turning each page with care, she flipped past lines of cryptic notes and whimsical doodles before something in particular caught her eye. Taking up a full page was a faded Edwardian postcard of a carousel, tinted in charming pastel colours. "Captain's Cove, New Jersey" was stamped clearly across the bottom. A note in the corner of the page, scrawled in the same handwriting as the rest of the journal, reminded its long-dead owner to "buy carousel horse from Sheldon!"
Joy merely stared at the book for several minutes, not knowing what to make of this. Here was an undeniable link between her family and Captain's Cove, far older than she had ever imagined. Who was this Josiah Crowley? How did her grandmother know him? Had he imparted an appreciation for carousels to her, and then she to her daughter, and she to her husband, Joy's father? In recovering Glory, had she discovered a connection not only to her mother, but to her grandmother as well?
The rest of the diary revealed nothing else linking its author to either Captain's Cove or the Trent family. Laying it gently aside, Joy delved further through the trunk's contents. They seemed not to have been arranged in any particular order; she came across a greyish photograph of two elegantly-dressed young women, "Gloria Dowd and Jane Willoughby, circa 1912," while right beneath it was a newspaper article, dated 1930, mentioning that Josiah Crowley had left nearly all his estate to a young woman named Emily Crandall. Further documents revealed that she soon afterwards became owner and manager of the Lilac Inn.
Joy's heartbeat quickened as she uncovered a well-worn scrapbook and began to leaf through it. A large photograph of brightly smiling newlyweds, surrounded by a seemingly hand-drawn border of flowers and doves, adorned the first page. Written in loopy cursive handwriting was the caption, "November 23rd 1941. Wedding bells for Emily Crandall and Richard Farnham." The following pages were thick with letters – long, loving ones addressed to 'my darling Dick' overseas in the Pacific; hastily-scrawled and mud-stained responses for 'my beloved Emmie.' Interspersed among them were copies of prayers for soldiers' safe returns, newspaper notices of friends lost in war, and a series of magazine clippings of baby carriages and infants' clothes, followed by a long period in which Dick's unanswered letters betrayed increasing concern for his wife. Finally, Joy turned the page to discover the couple reunited, the husband on crutches embracing a relieved Emily. Several more photos of the pair in front of their inn, and then –
"Our darling Valerie. Born safe and healthy, August 6th 1946."
There she was, Joy's mother, far younger than she had ever seen or even imagined her. Here she was again, a toddler taking her first steps, then a little girl seated with her mother astride a carousel horse. "Val simply loved Captain's Cove," Emily had written. "I'm sure Josiah would have been delighted."
The photographs continued, the round-faced child growing into the caring woman whose face still caused Joy both comfort and pain. She watched her mother win a spelling bee at eleven, stand beside her beaming parents in a graduation cap and gown, receive her undergraduate degree upon a stage. A tear blurred the time-mottled pages.
Life is made up of nothing but memories, her father had said. Even bad ones have a place in a good life. That had been as true for Emily as it was for Joy.
When she had wiped her eyes, piled the papers back into stacks, and closed the trunk lid, Joy stood up with the scrapbook still in her hands. A small black-and-white photograph, no more than three inches square, fell out and onto the floor. Bending to pick it up, Joy realized with interest that she hadn't seen it before. It must have been tucked beneath another picture, or wedged between two pages that had stuck.
The picture showed two teenaged girls, wearing dresses that Joy supposed were from the thirties, standing in front of the Lilac Inn. The young lady on the right, gesturing proudly towards the building, had to be Emily – her slim build, narrow face and short dark hair resembled not only that of the woman in the other photos, but Joy herself. However, the photo seemed to have been snapped at exactly the wrong moment for the girl on the left. Her head was turned as if she was glancing at something, and all that could be seen past the wide brim of her hat was a wisp of light-coloured hair. Curious, Joy flipped the picture around and saw a message written on its back:
"Grand reopening of the Lilac Inn, 1930. Me with Nancy Drew – without her help, none of this would ever have been possible."
Joy blinked at the name. Nancy Drew? What an odd coincidence, for both grandmother and granddaughter to have been helped by a girl with the same name…
Not knowing exactly what she was suspecting, Joy flipped back the photograph and stared more closely at the girl who must surely be an old, old woman, if not dead, by now. Still unrecognizable. With a dismissive shake of her head, she slipped the photograph back into the book. She'd been up here too long, letting the past and the present intertwine themselves, sinking into that sentimental state of wonderment where no coincidence is too absurd. As soon as she got back to work, her mind would clear. She was sure of it.
She took the scrapbook with her anyway.
Some notes:
When I first heard ghostdogsofbaskerville's idea that Emily Crandall could be Joy Trent's grandmother, I loved it and knew I had to write something about it. I haven't played either CLK or CAR in a while, but when I went back and looked through some video walkthroughs of them, I noticed all the Haunted Carousel references in Josiah Crowley's house, and figured that since he was rather close to Emily, he could have let her know about Captain's Cove, and the familiarity with the amusement park could have been passed through the family to Joy's parents (inspiring Joy's father to eventually co-own the park.)
All the antiques Joy sees when she first discovers the trunk are not only found in Emily's room in CLK, but used by Nancy when solving the mystery! Do you remember them?
I couldn't find a canon first name for Joy's mother, so I chose one myself. If anyone knows if Joy's mother has an actual name in the game (or book), just let me know and I'll change it. :)
Richard Farnham, Emily's husband, is the fiancée of Emily Willoughby, whom CLK's Emily was based off of, in the book Mystery at Lilac Inn. Therefore, I decided it made sense to put him into the story in this role.
I debated on whether or not to add Richard going to war and Emily suffering a miscarriage (as I hope I made clear enough without spelling it out), but I figured that adding hardships to Emily's life (in addition to losing both her mother and daughter) would better fit with the theme of Joy's own story, that of both bad and good memories being important in life. I thought that having Emily's husband fight in World War II made logical sense, giving the time period. As for the miscarriage, I figured I'd need an excuse as to why Emily had children relatively late in life for the time period (which she had to do, in order for the dates to line up – I estimated that Joy is about 25 in CAR, meaning she was born around 1978). In this story, I imagined that Emily was pregnant when Richard went overseas, and lost the child before it could be born, partially due to the stress of having a husband in the war. Then, she of course had to wait until Richard returned to have another child, hence Valerie being born when Emily was in her early 30s.
Finally, I couldn't resist putting in a little reference to the fanon that people from River Heights don't age, as a way of hinting at why Nancy stays the same between 1930 when CLK takes place and the early 2000s when the rest of the games take place. I didn't want to explain it or hammer it in, though, just to leave it sort of ambiguous. I also had to put in the running joke that a clear photograph is never taken of Nancy, so that we never see our protagonist's face! XD
I hope you all enjoyed this story. :) I don't own Nancy Drew or any of these characters.